Monthly Archives: January 2014

So I was thinking recently (I try to sneak in a think every couple of weeks) about how writers become writers. I’m not talking about the early, formative years, which I suspect are the same for everyone. Avid readers begin to tell their own tales, clumsily at first, then with improved style. Introversion kills any inconvenient social life, allowing the budding author to sit at home on Friday nights and write stories about orcs.

For example, of course.

But I have been thinking about how one goes from “aspiring writer” to “writer.” The path out there is thorny and not clearly marked. Take almost any other occupation, and the trail is clear. Doctor: go to med school. Lawyer: Law school. Hell, if you want to be a circus performer, my alma mater offers classes in that, too. But the only advice anyone gets about how to become a writer is…well, just to write.

And there’s a lot of value in that advice, as the world is overpopulated with people who would like to write someday and underpopulated with actual writers. You must write, get down in that experimental mucky muck of playing with words, and do it a lot.

But let’s face it– if a writer wants guidance, there’s not a lot of structured help out there. Plenty of tips, quips, and advice columns, but no pathway that can be found in other professions.

There’s certainly no lack of educational opportunities. From local creative writing classes at your JCC to Ph.D.’s and M.F.A.’s in Creative Writing, academia offers a plethora of chances to study creative writing with a teacher. (And chances for learning words like “plethora.”) This is the route I took.

But that didn’t make me a writer.

One of the most insightful creative writing teachers I ever had, novelist Jim Fusilli, urged the class to think of Writing as a craft, not as an art. Or rather, art can only be achieved through craft. So learn the craft.

And how are most crafts and trades learned?

With apprenticeships.

And so my idea is this: why not have writers learn as apprentices rather than as students? There are plenty of writer’s organizations and groups out there. Why not set up promising young writers in apprenticeships with experienced veterans? Bricklayers, carpenters, and plumbers do it, why not writers? This way, there would be structured guidance by someone who knows BOTH the craft of telling stories well AND the business end of finding agents, self-pubbing, negotiating contracts, and all that.

This apprentice system could be valuable for all types of writing, not just fiction. In fact, it would probably be most useful outside of fiction. There is no clear path to learning technical writing, writing ad copy, or other types of informational and persuasive text creation. Job postings for these professions insist upon 3 or 5 or 150 years of prior experience, and all I can wonder is how one gets in on the ground level. Then I look up how one starts on the ground level, and all the advice sites say “start small.” Which means nothing.

Right now, there are countless writers without jobs or outlets for their work, and countless employers despairing over the lack of literate workers to create text for them. What’s missing is a reliable, systematic method for creating articulate writers and funneling them into these jobs. Apprenticeships could produce a steady stream of quality writers for our workforce.